★ 6 / 10
At the beginning of the fourteenth century, Flanders
CinemaSerf
At the beginning of the fourteenth century, Flanders was a province of the French kingdom and it's subjects were well and truly subjugated by their arrogant…
At the beginning of the fourteenth century, Flanders was a province of the French kingdom and it's subjects were well and truly subjugated by their arrogant and exploitative overlords. When the king (Peter te Nuyl) is egged on by his nasty wife (Josine van Dalsum) to send in a more brutal governor, the aged count tries to appeal but that just sees him arrested and galvanises Robrecht van Bethune (Frank Aandenboom) to assemble a peasant army to take on the king's legendary troops - equipped with their golden spurs. Against such odds, what chance have a collection of farmers armed with only courage and pitchforks? It's history, and to be honest this isn't the best production of it that you might wish for, but there is something about the more rustic nature of the production that does hit home. The put-upon population are convincingly portrayed here as are their obnoxious feudal masters and when it gets to the combat scenes, the weaponry and fight choreography work really quite effectively amidst the mud, the blood and the truly heinous weapons that mankind devised to lop off the limbs and heads of their foes. Clearly, there was a limited budget here and that does affect both the grand scale photography at times and some of the acting - especially the shockingly wooden Nuyl, but I thought van Dalsum delivered quite well as the malevolent queen and it doesn't hang about for a ninety minutes that's a bit sterile, but still quite an interesting David and Goliath style of celebration of a worm that turned.
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★ 4 / 10
A nationalist epic nobody wanted - and everyone managed to hate
marclenglet80
Largely erased from collective memory today, The Lion of Flanders was, in its time, a genuine "Low Countries blockbuster" - and a magnet for controversy. The…
Largely erased from collective memory today, The Lion of Flanders was, in its time, a genuine "Low Countries blockbuster" - and a magnet for controversy. The most expensive film ever made in Belgium also became one of the decade's most spectacular box-office disasters. Based on the 1838 novel by Hendrik Conscience, long considered a cornerstone of the Flemish Movement, the film was conceived - very explicitly - as a faithful mirror of the book. Faithful to the point of rigidity.Even the choice of director was contentious. Hugo Claus, who famously described himself as a "Francophile flamingant", was nonetheless one of the very few bekende vlamingen of his era. Deeply attached to Flemish culture, he had also spent his life openly criticising the narrow-minded provincialism of his compatriots - which explains why his work on the film was closely monitored by nervous financiers.Yes, the screen is filled with the most blunt, Manichean tropes of exalted nationalism. But given the producers' obsession with literal adaptation, and considering the novel's own agenda, this is hardly surprising. We are dealing with a mid-19th-century writer attempting to fabricate, almost from scratch, a "national consciousness" for a Flemish people he believed threatened with dilution by both the Francophone world and the Netherlands. From that perspective, the demonisation of the historical "villains" - the French, and by extension Francophones - is no more vicious than the way American cinema has long portrayed its Russians, Arabs, Mexicans or vaguely defined East Asians.After all, no one seriously reproaches Braveheart for inflaming Scottish nationalism - which is precisely what it did.Seen today, the film is not entirely disgraceful. It has aged, undeniably, sometimes resembling a giant costume reenactment staged for a Limburg sausage fair. The pacing is slack, several actors look visibly out of place, but one has seen far worse within the genre. The battle scenes do not shy away from the occasional decapitation or bloody disembowelment, which is always welcome.As for the patriotic acne flare-ups, they should be treated with the same amused indulgence as other clumsy anachronisms scattered throughout the film - like the oddly neo-romantic earrings worn by French nobles, or Philippe le Bel's unforgettable wig.The real irony is that upon release, this film - built entirely on compromises - managed to alienate absolutely everyone. The Francophone press fretted about potential post-screening beatings of young Francophones by overexcited Flemish nationalists. A handful of Flemish nationalist groups bristled at the irony Claus injected into certain scenes, particularly those mocking the religious dimension of Flemish resistance. Meanwhile, the mainstream Flemish press simply tore into the film's awkwardness - and above all its astronomical budget, already heralding the box-office humiliation to come.A national epic designed to unite, ending up offending all camps equally: there is something profoundly Belgian about that.
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5.5/10
950
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